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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28046982">Diagnosis: Hired</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn'>AndreaLyn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>House M.D.</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 14:27:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,540</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28046982</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Chase got hired because his father made a phone call. But really, that's just an excuse.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Diagnosis: Hired</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted on LiveJournal in 2008.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>Sometimes, I forget why I hired you.</em><br/><br/>*<br/><br/>“He’s pretty.”<br/><br/>“You think everyone is pretty.”<br/><br/>“He’s young.”<br/><br/>Cal Smiths and Doreen Andrews had been the two fellows when Chase had his interview with Dr. House. Smiths was a cardiologist on his way out to finer things in Oxford; namely, a teaching job. Andrews was a radiologist with a sweet smile and laugh lines around her eyes. Chase had been sitting there, overhearing everything they were saying. He was almost more than fairly sure he was supposed to hear it all.<br/><br/>“He like, just turned twenty-six,” Smiths replied, simply. “Besides. He’s Robert <em>Chase</em>.”<br/><br/>Chase did his best not to flinch in his chair, keeping his gaze straightforward and on the wall. He had a folder in his lap of all the necessary paperwork a man from Australia needed to work in the US and he was waiting on House. Everyone was always waiting on House, according to the nurse who had shown him to the office. His grip of the manila folder did tighten, just barely, and he glanced to the side. Smiths was in his mid-30’s and Andrews was gorgeous. It was the best way to describe her, really. Gorgeous.<br/><br/>“You think he’s that Chase,” Andrews replied, bemused.<br/><br/>“I heard his father called in the middle of the interview.”<br/><br/>Chase was beginning to pray for lightning to strike him down where he sat and considering Chase’s rocky relationship with God in the past, this was saying something. Finally, he heard the door open, but it wasn’t House at all, just a brunet doctor poking his head in. “Not here, huh,” the man said.<br/><br/>“No,” Chase replied politely, but succinctly.<br/><br/>“Right. Right, well, tell him Dr. Wilson came by,” he sighed. “And that he has my car keys,” he added bitterly. He seemed to leave, but at the last minute, he hung in the doorway. “You look familiar.”<br/><br/>“I’m the interview. I’ve been here for a while. You probably’ve just seen me when you walked by,” he said, the sarcasm barely contained as he shifted his folders again.<br/><br/>“No, somewhere else,” Dr. Wilson said, narrowing his eyes. “It’ll come to me,” he promised and left the room for good.<br/><br/>Chase had no intention of mentioning that he’d probably seen him on a book cover or two in those stupid family portraits his Dad had always thought made him look more sympathetic or family-oriented or whatever it did. He tapped his fingers on the folder again and again, blowing an exhaled breath past his lips as he tilted his head to the ceiling to find…<br/><br/>“Pencils?” he asked audibly.<br/><br/>“I swear, it wasn’t me.”<br/><br/>The reply came from a foreign voice and Chase swerved in his chair to glance over his shoulder past the fringe of blond hair that refused to move from his eyeline. This was the infamous Doctor House, it looked like. He took one long look at Chase and then wandered into the adjoining room. “Differential for three full rooms with patients and no doctors to cover them?” he asked, leaning heavily on his cane.<br/><br/>It seemed to do some sort of trick, because Smith and Andrews started collecting all their things and filed past House on their way into the hall. Andrews even paused to turn and offer Chase a wink, which he interpreted to mean that either he was in some sort of trouble or she just <em>was</em> trouble. Smith just laughed, even though it wasn’t audible by any means.<br/><br/>When House came back into his office, Chase was about to explode, like popcorn ready to just go off. “Dr. Wilson was looking for you,” he offered dutifully, setting out his files next to his mobile on the desk. House didn’t seem to even glance at them so much as just stare at Chase as long as he could, his eyes never moving and for a second, Chase wondered if he had something on his face.<br/><br/>He had heard about this, this intimidation by determination method and he was stubborn enough to want to win. Chase had enough experience with doctors possessing gigantic egos that he was perfectly suited to this gig.<br/><br/>“So,” House commented, popping a Vicodin into his mouth. “I wasn’t exactly looking for a <em>male</em> piece of ass, not since that gay nurse switched hospitals.” House gave a dismissive sound. “Harassment,” he said, rolling his eyes. “What’s your experience?”<br/><br/>“My internship and my residency,” Chase answered, trying to dig out some of the more unique cases he’d come by. He hadn’t written a paper on them like some of his colleagues might have, but he’d been there and had come up with some of the more creative methods of diagnosing. It wasn’t exactly the glory-through-blazing-victory tack that Dr. House preferred to use, but it was a victory of <em>some</em> kind at least.<br/><br/>“I’m not really looking to baby-sit,” House pointed out, flipping the folders shut.<br/><br/>That was about the exact moment that Chase’s mobile started to ring.<br/><br/>Chase lunged for it, but the fact was that House had better reflexes than the twenty-six year old intensivist, which he heard about when House crowed that exact thing aloud, with the addition of ‘hailing from Melbourne…’ before answering the phone. “Yello?” House said casually. “Uh huh…uh huh…right. Robbie’s right here with me. Yup. No, can’t talk to him, we’re a bit busy.”<br/><br/>Chase closed his eyes and did something that was probably about to cost him the job, but he couldn’t take it anymore. He shoved the chair back and wandered into the other half of the office while House played catch-up with whoever was on the phone (and how much did Chase want to bet that it was his father calling to check up on how his interviews were going?)<br/><br/>The whiteboard held a lot of symptoms on it and just about as many question marks and Chase gravitated towards that to keep his mind away from the conversation House was having .<br/><br/>He heard the door shut behind him and turned to find Smiths standing there, hands casually pushed into his pockets. “You got booted?”<br/><br/>“No, he’s on a personal call,” Chase said tersely, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb.<br/><br/>“That’s not his cell.”<br/><br/>“It’s <em>my</em> personal call he’s on,” Chase found himself compelled to further explain. He kept twisting a pen with his fingers, chewing on it as he tilted his head to one side and nodded to the board. “Are you guys sure the low blood pressure isn’t something else? It looks like the blood pressure caused the rest of this. Unless you’ve already ruled that out?”<br/><br/>Smiths gave Chase a bemused look. “You think like him.”<br/><br/>“Like…”<br/><br/>“Daddy says hi,” House interrupted, tossing the mobile back to Chase. There was a bit of fumbling, but Chase managed to pocket it without dropping it. There was a long moment of silence between them and he shooed Smiths with a ‘Get! Go!’ Chase shifted where he was, perching on the edge of the table while Smiths left the room, bringing a quiet and awkward hush over the diagnosing area.<br/><br/>Chase probably could’ve brought up the diagnosis notion, but he didn’t (assuming House had thought of it already. After all, he was <em>House</em>).<br/><br/>“So you talked to my father,” Chase said, most definitely less than thrilled. There were sloths out there happier about being eaten than Chase was about being part of his family. “And this was no exception. “And now I assume what you’re going to do is talk about how my family connections can’t get me everywhere in life. Or you’ll hire me because you think I carry some genetic trait that makes me as brilliant as <em>him</em>, but whatever it is, you’re comparing me to him, right now,” Chase assessed knowingly, not blinking once.<br/><br/>House didn’t say anything, but he did make a ‘go on’ gesture as he leaned harder on the cane.<br/><br/>“Thing is,” Chase said, eyeing House critically. “If you do hire me, it’s not going to be for my talents, though you will make sure I can do my job.” It all clicked suddenly and Chase knew he had the job, even if it was for reasons he didn’t like, at all. “You’re going to hire me because I’ll put the others at unease. You’re going to harp on the fact that my father’s this big shot and then turn to me once in a while and treat me more like a colleague than you do them because it’ll motivate them to fight harder.”<br/><br/>Nothing. Absolutely nothing in reply.<br/><br/>Chase had the feeling that maybe he’d got it wrong after all and he’d just gone and made a gigantic arse of himself.<br/><br/>“You start Monday, Chase,” House announced, looking him over very slowly. “Don’t skimp on the keen insight. Smiths could use some fear before he leaves us for jolly old England.”<br/><br/>*<br/><br/>Even though Chase started on Monday, he didn’t actually see House until Thursday of the following week when, after his bout of unexplained absence, he strolled into the office and hung up his jacket on Smiths head, giving Andrews a wink and scrawling symptoms on the board.<br/><br/>“Differential diagnosis. Go. Chase, let’s start with you.”</p>
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